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Month: February 2008

Palestinians in Gaza harm themselves more than they could ever hurt Israel, argues Yael Kaynan. What future is there when children are taught that there is no greater accomplishment than blowing themselves up?

To be ignorant has always been easy: Simply sit back in your recliner and watch Fox News.

But to be genuinely misinformed has become exponentially easier with the rise of the Internet, as lies and half-truths gush forth through its twisted web of data-tubes.

In the pre-Web age, publishing something which was patently false required a fair bit of money or, at the very least, access to some dumb schmuck who was willing to publish your ideas for you, and giving legitimacy to ill-conceived or outright moronic views required hours and hours of cherry-picking quotes and struggling to find sources that agreed with you.

Oh, Saudi Arabia. That magical land where women can’t drive and rape victims are punishable by lashing has decided to go old school in its latest example of misogyny: sentencing a women to execution … for witchcraft.

Yes, you heard that correctly. Thanks to a coerced confession and testimonies from neighbors who claim she “bewitched” them, a woman named Fawza Falih was sentenced to death in 2006. According to the Associated Press, she has tried to appeal this conviction, saying that she was forced to fingerprint a confession that she couldn’t even read (she’s illiterate).

You Are What You Spend – New York Times
WITH markets swinging widely, the Federal Reserve slashing interest rates and the word “recession” on everybody’s lips, renewed attention is being given to the gap between the haves and have-nots in America. Most of this debate, however, is focused on the wrong measurement of financial well-being.

It’s true that the share of national income going to the richest 20 percent of households rose from 43.6 percent in 1975 to 49.6 percent in 2006, the most recent year for which the Bureau of Labor Statistics has complete data. Meanwhile, families in the lowest fifth saw their piece of the pie fall from 4.3 percent to 3.3 percent.